The lukewarm reception to the news left eos nursing the biggest losses of all the digital tokens, but some of the downturn may have also been attributed to news that US regulators were continuing to investigate price manipulation in the crypto-complex.

Price-fixing probe

The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission had demanded that several bitcoin exchanges hand over trading data to assess whether price manipulation had distorted prices of bitcoin futures, launched on CME in December.

Alarm bells were reportedly sounded after CME was denied access to data from several exchanges that helps it form its price index for bitcoin futures shortly after the launch.

The WSJ’s sources said the quarrel between CME and the crypto exchanges led to the CFTC opening an investigation into the matter.

Cyber attacks on altcoin wallets

Meanwhile, the crypto-asset market was also undermined by report of a hack on a cryptocurrency exchange in South Korea.

Coinrail said in a statement on its website that the exchange is currently closed for system maintenance following the attack in which an unspecified value of digital coins were stolen.

It’s an ever-present danger. In January, $530m worth of nem tokens were stolen from a hot wallet on the CoinCheck exchange.

Cryptocurrencies fall

Here’s a roundup of the other main price moves:

Bitcoin is down 8.3% at $6,759

Ethereum loses 7.8% to $531.88

Ripple sheds 9.9% to $0.58

Bitcoin cash falls 11.1% to $938.50

Litecoin slides 7.1% to $106.94

Stellar is down 8.3% at $0.25

Cardano falls 10.4% to $0.17

Iota loses 10.3% to $1.38

Tron is down 16% to $0.05

Post written by Chris Wheal

Chris Wheal is editor of OpenLedger's news and features service. An award-wining business journalists himself, he runs a team of freelance journalists from across the UK and north America.